Basque police discover bomb

Police found a bomb in the Basque region of Spain yesterday, five days after a car bombing in Madrid killed one person and shattered a nine-month ceasefire between the government and the armed separatist group Eta.

Nearly 100kg (220lb) of explosives were found in a drum near an abandoned car outside the town of Amorebieta, and they had been rigged to be used in an attack, a spokesman for the Basque police said.

The Basque interior department said the new explosives had been ready for "immediate" use and only lacked a detonator.

Just hours before the find was disclosed, the Spanish prime minister warned Eta that the government and people would not be intimidated after the weekend bombing of a Madrid airport car park. The blast killed a 35-year-old Ecuadorean immigrant, whose body was found in the rubble on Wednesday and was sent back to his country on a Spanish military plane last night.

In a rare gesture, Eta's outlawed political wing, Batasuna, expressed its "deepest sorrow" for the Ecuadorean's death. On Wednesday, its members said they were caught off guard by the bombing and insisted the peace process was not dead because Eta had not formally declared it was ending the truce.